Little deterrent
Sorry, I missed what the "strong message" was that was sent to those who wish to smuggle cacti (NZ Herald, Wednesday) into New Zealand. Was it the 12 months' intensive supervision and the 100 hours' community work, is that what is considered a "strong message"? Oh please,
this woman went to inordinate lengths to conceal seeds and plants to smuggle into NZ and all she gets is the "wet bus ticket slap over the wrist". Surely a prison sentence would serve as a deterrent or, preferably, send her back to where she came from with these plants and never allow her to enter NZ again. That is a real deterrent. No wonder these smugglers continue to bring into NZ fruit, vegetables, plants, etc; as any punishment, if they do get caught, is negligible.
Brenda Barnes, St Heliers
Common sense needed
Fran O'Sullivan's nicely summarised column on climate change sums up a lot of our hesitant behaviour when it comes to rebuilding an appropriate kind of ecosystem, of which future humans and other species will benefit from. Yet, here's another commission (the Climate Change Commission) trying to research, calculate and justify a new plan of attack, duplicating what anyone with some common sense has predicted for years. How much research do we need to invest in, when all these funds could long have been used to allocate land and plant many native varieties of beneficial, non-invasive, plant species, which double as shelter belts for other species, with enough open spaces to minimise any future fire hazards? How hard is it to comprehend basic biological and physical facts and their repercussions? If done simply and correctly, with a seriously good dose of common sense, there is never any other good reason for all these delays. In my view, the length of time in delays only benefits a very narrow bureaucratic society.
Rene Blezer, Taupō
History curriculum
I read with interest the article on the new "revolutionary" history curriculum for students through years one to 10. A very detailed and complete programme – well done to Professor Michael Belgrave and the Royal Society expert panel. It is to be hoped that Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Minister Kelvin Davis can now inspire those responsible to develop a similar "revolutionary" curriculum in the areas of maths and science for those same students, to reverse the internationally embarrassing level to which our standards have dropped in these areas.
Warwick Maxwell, St Heliers
Extreme approach
For mre than 30 years New Zealand's maths and English teaching has gone way downhill, based on international measures, as science probably has too. The Ministry of Education, teachers' unions and governments should hang their heads in shame. National tried to overhaul the school system to expand the excellence that undoubtedly exists in some schools and classes but could not get that through Parliament or the support of the politically driven teachers' unions. Now the Government proposes 10 years of NZ history classes, and potentially compulsory te reo. Balanced and dispassionate history is reasonable but 10 years is unnecessary and extreme. How will that help job prospects and the country's capabilities? One term or semester would be ample. The effort required of the ministry, teachers, and pupils for this will further dilute that of far more important subjects. For most children there are limits to how many subjects they can become accomplished in. If NZ wants to get ahead socially and economically, the focus should be heavily on STEM subjects and English, in streamed classes to cater for different natural abilities. The key is maximum use of time, focused on the building block process of mastering critical subjects.
Rod McIntyre, St Heliers
Back in the queue
To date, the EU has achieved a 3 per cent vaccination rate for Covid-19, the UK rate stands at 15 per cent. New Zealand currently stands at 0 per cent, by April-June of 2021... who can say? Latest reports are that the Pfizer vaccine will not be delivered until "the end of March". So much for going early and going strong. Minister Hipkins had deceptively led us to believe that "we were at the head of the queue". The PM has declared our recent election "a Covid-19 election". Should an outbreak now occur and before a large percentage of our population have been vaccinated, our Government's risky and dilatory actions will not readily be forgiven.
Larry Mitchell, Rothesay Bay
